1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to IBM-type Personal Computers (PC), and more specifically to a logic module, preferably implemented as firmware, for implementing system changes on PC architecture computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
In 1981, IBM introduced a personal computer, aptly named the IBM Personal Computer or PC. The original IBM PC was built of many off-the-shelf non-proprietary components and was based on an "open" computer architecture. The architecture is described as "open" because IBM published its specifications to encourage other vendors to create software and add-in cards to foster the PC's market popularity. Many manufacturers began marketing personal computers with the open architecture and this became known as IBM PC-clones. Eventually, the combination of the IBM PC itself and the clones became known as simply PCs to distinguish them from Apple Computer Architecture which followed a completely different standard.
PCs made by many manufacturers have enjoyed considerable market success. From the PCs inception until about 1995 approximately 250-300 million IBM PC and PC-clones were manufactured worldwide. Some experts in the field estimate approximately 120-180 million of these PCs and clones are still in service. These pre-1995 (estimated date) PCs share a common problem due to deficiencies in low-level hardware and the PC's operating system. The most common shortcoming is that the program code running on a specialized "Basic Input Output System (BIOS)" chip within the PC that controls the computer's most basic operations fails to enable the system to maintain the correct date following 11:59:59 p.m. Dec. 31, 1999.
The invention described in this specification directly addresses this problem by providing a system and method for fixing system deficiencies, in low-level hardware or with components of the operating system that could also work to specifically address the date and time problem described above.